Case Number 23323

ANONYMOUS

The Charge

Was Shakespeare a fraud?

Opening Statement

William Shakespeare died in Stratford in 1616. Seven years later, two of his
colleagues published the First Folio, containing 36 plays. Much wackiness ensued
in England over the next several decades, but the end of the seventeenth century
saw two notable developments: 1) Shakespeare became hailed as a national
treasure, and 2) Biography became a popular literary form. A biography of
Shakespeare should have been the inevitable result, but the hoard of
biographers who set themselves the task found...well, next to nothing.
Shakespeare didn't leave a much of a paper trail beyond a couple of legal
documents, including a lawsuit in which he sued a neighbor to recover a debt.
That last sat poorly with those who had placed Shakespeare on a very high
pedestal; how could the man who penned "The quality of mercy is not strained" In
The Merchant of Venice behave like such a Shylock? After having matters
further confused by a series of fake biographies, fake correspondence, and even
some fake "newly discovered works", someone opined that since there was so
little direct evidence linking Shakespeare to his work, perhaps someone else
wrote them.

That person is, without question, the greatest troll in the annals of
western civilization.

These days, there are two major camps in the anti-Stratfordian movement. The
Marlovians contend that Christopher Marlowe faked his own death -- he was killed
in a bar fight in 1593 -- and re-emerged as Shakespeare (He may also even now be
on a tropical island with Elvis and Marilyn Monroe). The Oxfordians believe that
the man behind the curtain was Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Columbia
Pictures now brings before the court Anonymous, a movie based on the
premise that Shakespeare was not who he seemed to be.

Facts of the Case

It is the twilight of the reign of Queen Elizabeth (Vanessa Redgrave,
Mission: Impossible; in flashbacks, the younger Elizabeth is played by
her daughter Joely Richardson, The Patriot). Having no legitimate heirs,
Elizabeth has at length decided to name as her successor King James VI of
Scotland -- the son of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. Some of the more
established nobility isn't thrilled with the idea of a Scotsman on the throne of
England, particularly since his mother Mary was a Catholic. At the same time,
with the War of the Roses still a fairly recent memory, everyone wants to avoid
another dynastic civil war. In this tense time, the Earl of Essex (Sebastian
Reid), whom some suspect is the illegitimate son of Elizabeth, is angling for
the crown, supported by the young Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (Xavier
Samuel).

One afternoon, Edward deVere, Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans, Notting
Hill; the younger Oxford is played by Jaimie Campbell Bower, Camelot)
and the Wriothesley attend a play, at which de Vere is struck by the power that
the drama has over the audience. He realizes that he can use plays to shape
public opinion in such a way that Essex can ascend to the throne without
bloodshed. The only problem is that no one can know he had anything to do with
it. He enlists struggling poet Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto, Marie
Antoinette) to present the plays as his own, but at the first public
performance of Henry V, Johnson is a little slow in stepping forward to
claim authorship, and one of the actors seizes the moment and claims authorship
for himself -- a particularly annoying lout named Will Shakespeare (Rafe Spall).
As de Vere's plays become more and more popular, he must contend with
Shakespeare's greed, as well as the machinations of William and Robert Cecil
(David Thewlis, DragonHeart, and Edward Hogg, Isle of Dogs,
respectively), Elizabeth's spymasters, who are intent to see James on the
throne.

As events play out over several years, de Vere finds out that political
drama is a high stakes business -- and that he has a lot more to lose than just
his life.

The Evidence

With Anonymous director Roland Emmerich (Godzilla) and writer
John Orloff don't try to make a case for Oxford. Instead, they ask: If Oxford
did write the plays, how did they end up attributed to this Shakespeare
guy? That's not splitting hairs -- it's a key distinction, and it's one of
several reasons that Anonymous is both an engaging political thriller and
a celebration of William Shakespeare (the actual Shakespeare, not Edward de
Vere). It lets them play fast and loose with the facts for dramatic effect (for
instance, they have de Vere writing A Midsummer Night's Dream in his
youth, around 1560-65, when the play, based on references to other works, was
likely written ~1595). In fact, the movie plays out much like a Shakespearean
play, with twists, turns, plot, counterplots, and revelations galore -- they
even go so far as to have a prologue/epilogue for the play, performed in the
present by famed Shakespearean (and noted Oxfordian) Derek Jacobi (I,
Claudius). Setting history aside, the story works.

The performances are, for the most part, good. Ifans does a good enough job,
but the shifting timelines force him to play things close to the vest lest he
inadvertently reveal some last minute secrets. Others aren't as restricted
though. Vanessa Redgrave flings herself into the role of Elizabeth -- near
death, uncertain, and with faculties failing in one timeline, more assured and
willful in an earlier one. But the one who stands out most is Sebastian
Armesto's Ben Jonson. A man with no small talent, not only must he help another
poet's work to eclipse his own, but he must also watch a less talented (in this
move, at least) artist get the credit. His is the character we sympathize with
the most.

While the question of historical accuracy is problematic (see the rebuttal),
it doesn't diminish the movie's technical accomplishments; because of the
limited budget, much of Tudor England was created using CGI -- including some of
the interiors; the movie has a great look, particularly the interiors, which are
frequently shot by candlelight. That look is captured well on the disc; while
there are times when the background has a two-dimensional look, that is likely a
function of the CGI rather than the video mastering. The audio is good as well;
the movie doesn't require an aggressive sound mix, but crowd noises are
particularly well imaged, whether in a theater or in a crowded tavern. The
extras are a mixed bag. There is a featurette examining the authorship question
-- it's a wee bit slanted towards Oxford, but that's to be expected. There are
three deleted scenes that don't really add anything -- interestingly, there are
snippets of other deleted scenes in the authorship featurette that look far more
interesting. Finally, Emmerich and Orloff provide a commentary track that is
good, but not great -- they spend a little too much time patting each other on
the back. It's astounding that there was no making-of featurette -- there were
very few physical sets, almost all of Tudor England was created with CGI, and
it's always interesting to hear how actors approach playing historical
figures.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Anonymous goes a little over the top in its characterizations -- de
Vere is too idealized, the Cecil's are too scheming and villainous, and
Shakespeare himself too buffoonish. The relatively large number of characters
prevents much in the way of development, and the plot and the shifting time
frames get needlessly convoluted at times, to the point where one suspects that
the movie's a narrative shell game designed to keep viewers from thinking too
hard on the authorship question itself, or on the historical inaccuracies. And
by "inaccuracies", I don't mean authorship-related issues, I mean things that
are flat out wrong, such as suggesting that Shakespeare slit Christopher
Marlowe's throat in a dark alley when it is a documented fact that he was killed
in a tavern in front of multiple witnesses. The easy answer is to simply say,
well, it's just a movie, but that approach is more than just a little
disingenuous. As de Vere notes, "all art is politics", and if that's true, it's
as true about movies as it is about drama, particularly a movie presenting such
a highly fictionalized version of history.

Closing Statement

Anonymous aspires to be the Shakespearean equivalent of JFK,
and if Emmerich and Orloff had hewn a little closer to the actual facts, they
might have pulled it off. However, the license taken with historical events
transforms the story of Edward de Vere into more of an alternate history; put it
another way, at some point, "dramatic license" becomes "pulling shit out of your
ass". For all the movie's narrative prowess, the fact is that it is so committed
to presenting Edward de Vere as the unquestioned author of Shakespeare's plays
that it ultimately becomes little more than slickly-produced propaganda.

The Verdict

I don't for a minute believe that de Vere actually wrote the plays; this film
presents a romantic fantasy in which that is the truth, but it is just that -- a
fantasy, hopelessly at odds with the facts. Despite that, I couldn't help but
feel sorry for de Vere as he watches his greatest creations torn away from him.
To that end, Anonymous is an effective enough movie; unfortunately, it's
effective enough that it might get people to accept the premise that de Vere
wrote Shakespeare's plays even though it doesn't offer much evidence to that
effect.